LARGS Probus Club got the unique opportunity to find out about the heroic engineers of the Titanic in a captivating talk on the infamous liner.

When the Titanic went down, she took with her the lives of many brave people including her entire complement of engineers under the control of Joseph Bell, the chief engineer officer.

The role they played and the ultimate sacrifice they made was the subject of the talk to Probus by Sean Szmalc from Falkirk.

Sean has had a lifelong interest in the Titanic with a particular interest in the heroic engineers.

He gave a brief history of the doomed vessel which was laid down in the Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast in 1908 and launched in 1911.

Its maiden voyage in May 1912 was very successful with the Board of Trade Inspector calling her “phenomenal” and “a marvel of engineering”.

Sean advised that the engineers were handpicked by Joseph Bell and spoke on the background of a number of them, including Jonathon Shepherd, Robert Norman, Herbert Harvey, William Young Moyles and Robert Miller, and the roles they played on the ship.

Their watchkeeping duties included ensuring all the machinery functioned correctly, as well as supervising the firemen, greasers and coal trimmers and tending the reciprocating engines, boilers and electrical generators under their control.

They would also have been responsible for ensuring fresh water and heating was available in the passenger spaces. If any defect or problem was encountered, engineers would be directed to deal with them.

As the Titanic was proceeding at its normal full speed, the engineers on watch in the engine and boiler rooms would have had no reason to believe that anything untoward was likely to happen, so when the ship approached the iceberg and the telegraph rang to "Stop: full astern" it would have been a great shock to the engineers on duty and there was insufficient time for them to action the message to any effect before the collision.

Pumping water from the flooding compartments delayed the inevitable by 30 minutes and the engineers stayed at their tasks even though they will have known that they could not save the ship and that their lives were at risk.

Their only hope was to delay the ship's sinking until help arrived but the nearest ship, the Carpathian, was four hours away and when it reached the scene it found only lifeboats.

Sean showed photographs of memorials to the engineers, including a plaque to William Young Moyles in Stirling.

He concluded by advising that the gold braid insignia of rank worn by British merchant marine engineer officers on the sleeves of their uniform jackets has a purple background in memory of the heroic engineers on the Titanic.

Member Gordon Law thanked Sean for an excellent talk which showed his encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, referring to the enduring story of the Titanic and to his own interest in the subject and to visits he had made to various Titanic exhibitions.

Largs Probus Club provides the opportunity for retired or semi-retired professional and businessmen to meet and promote friendship and good fellowship, and meet at the Willowbank Hotel on Wednesdays at 10am.

Anyone interested in joining the club can do so be visiting largsprobus.org.uk